infolibre

Saturday, December 22, 2001

James Wishard Robertson, a noted book designer and publisher who was one of California's best-known fine printers, has died at 66.

In 1974, he and his wife, Carolyn, founded the Yolla Bolly Press in the Mendocino County town of Covelo, where they produced a wide range of books, including children's books, large-format pictorial books, and limited editions of fiction and poetry . . .

Friday, December 21, 2001

If you're interested in reading any of the books in my library, e-mail me and I'll send it to you (I'll need a mailing address). Read it at your leisure. No hurry whatsoever. Who wants to be rushed when they're reading? We're not in high school anymore (unless you're in high school - but I'm not going to treat you like you're in high school) . . .

You have questions? You're saying, "This is ridiculous. He will lose all his books. He will spend a fortune in postage." These are legitimate concerns. But I trust you to return the books when you're ready. And postage? Work will take care of that. (That's a joke. Don't fire me. I'll put the postage meter down.)

Under the terms of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), radio stations around the country are supposed to pay thousands of dollars in annual fees to broadcast streaming audio over the Web. Managers of college and community stations say while their commercial counterparts may be able to pay the fees, their stations don't have the cash and will shut down their webcasts.

The 1998 law came up on Capitol Hill Thursday, as members of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property held an oversight hearing on how temporary copies stored on computers should be counted when calculating copyright fees . . .

The daylong symposium will bring together scholars, information professionals and the general public in an exploration of changing perceptions regarding paper-based information resources. Leading experts will discuss why they use and preserve information in various formats, from files that are "born digital" to more traditional books and archival collections on paper.

The program will begin by addressing human anxieties about the fragility of information and how society has responded to those anxieties. The latter half of the morning session will focus on the information format needs of scholars: Are digital files sufficient replacements for book and paper materials? With so much emphasis on digital information, has society become sentimental about its books and paper documents? And should sentiment drive libraries to preserve every book within their walls in its original form? The afternoon program will focus on the challenges involved in preserving information from the decision-making process to issues unique among different formats . . .

Karen Sendziak leafs through a file folder containing press releases, handbills, photographs and even a T-shirt from the 1978 state representative campaign of Gary Nepon -- the first openly gay person to run for public office in Illinois . . .

In the now-yellowing photos, inside a Fotomat envelope, Nepon smiles broadly, a dapper candidate with his thick mustache and his brushed-leather jacket. He went on to lose his run for the Democratic nomination in the 13th District, which included the epicenter of gay Chicago, the Lake View neighborhood. Thirteen years later, he was dead of AIDS . . .

The Gerber/Hart Library, in a modest storefront at 1127 W. Granville Ave. in the Edgewater neighborhood, is filled with tens of thousands of similar relics that trace the evolution of the gay and lesbian communities in and around Chicago over a period of more than four decades .

In addition to safeguarding such materials in its archives, Gerber/Hart has also served as a lending and research library -- with its 18,000 volumes and some 12,000 issues of 700 periodicals -- and as a community center where reading groups gather, art is exhibited and clubs, such as the Windy City BackGaymmon Club, have their monthly meetings.

But, after a financial scare late last summer, the organization now finds itself at a crossroads, as leaders re-evaluate its role and function . . .